Director of National Intelligence

The Director of National Intelligence heads the United States Intelligence Community and directs the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Both were created by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (Pub. L. 108-458), signed on December 17, 2004. "There is a Director of National Intelligence who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate"; nominees must have "extensive national security expertise," and the Director "shall not be located within the Executive Office of the President."¹ The first Director and Principal Deputy Director were sworn in on April 21, 2005, and "the ODNI began operations at 7 a.m. on April 22, 2005."²

Creation

Before 2005 the Director of Central Intelligence managed the intelligence agencies while also leading the Central Intelligence Agency. The 9/11 Commission "recommended replacing the triple-hatted position of DCI." "With the passage of IRTPA, Congress abolished the position of DCI... The Director of the CIA now reports to the DNI."³ The Director is responsible for "the oversight and direction of the 18 elements of the intelligence community."³

Statutory authorities

Under 50 U.S.C. § 3024 the Director directs "the 'allotment or allocation' of congressionally appropriated funds for the NIP to elements of the IC," manages "the tasking, collection, analysis, production, and dissemination of national intelligence," must "ensure the elimination of waste and unnecessary duplication within the intelligence community," sets policies for "sound analytic methods and tradecraft, independent of political considerations," protects intelligence sources and methods from "unauthorized disclosure," and is the "exclusive milestone decision authority" for major intelligence system acquisitions funded through the National Intelligence Program.³

Under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Attorney General and the Director jointly certify to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that collection targets non-U.S. persons outside the United States.⁴ Authority to establish Special Access Programs rests with the Secretary of Defense, the Director and certain other senior officials.⁵

Organization

The ODNI (50 U.S.C. § 3025) is staffed by permanent federal employees, contractors and personnel detailed from other agencies under a Chief Operating Officer. The Principal Deputy Director is appointed by the President with Senate confirmation and "shall act for, and exercise the powers of" the Director when the post is vacant (50 U.S.C. § 3026(a)). The Director may appoint up to four deputies; in 2025 there were two, a Deputy for Mission Integration, who oversees the National Intelligence Council and the President's Daily Brief, and a Deputy for Policy and Capabilities, whose portfolio includes the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity. The office also contains the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, the Office of the General Counsel and the office for Civil Liberties, Privacy and Transparency.³

Christopher Fonzone, later head of the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, was the office's general counsel under President Joe Biden.⁶ Luis Elizondo wrote that he held positions within the ODNI, as well as the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive and the Department of Defense, and managed Special Access Programs.⁷

Directors

The Senate-confirmed Directors have been John Negroponte (2005 to 2007), J. Michael McConnell (2007 to 2009), Dennis Blair (2009 to 2010), James Clapper (2010 to 2017), Daniel Coats (2017 to 2019), John L. Ratcliffe (2020 to 2021), Avril D. Haines (2021 to 2025) and Tulsi Gabbard (from 2025).³ Clapper had been director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in the early 1990s, when the agency ran the remote viewing program later known as the Stargate Project.⁸ "Jay Clayton was sworn in as the ninth Director of National Intelligence on August 3, 2026."⁹

Reorganization under Gabbard

On May 14, 2025, CNN reported, Gabbard removed the acting chair of the National Intelligence Council, Mike Collins, and his deputy, Maria Langan-Riekhof, and moved the council's offices from the CIA to the ODNI. An ODNI spokesperson said: "The director is working alongside President Trump to end the weaponization and politicization of the intelligence community."¹⁰

"In August 2025, the most recent changes to the ODNI were announced, aimed at streamlining the office and reducing redundancies. They include elimination of three Mission Centers (integrating their core functions with the National Intelligence Council [NIC]), elimination of global health as an ODNI core mission area, closing the National Intelligence University (NIU), and reducing staff by over 40% by the end of FY2025." The centers eliminated were the National Counterproliferation and Biosecurity Center, the Foreign Malign Influence Center and the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center; the National Counterterrorism Center and the National Counterintelligence and Security Center remained as the office's only mission centers.³

Politico reported on March 23, 2026, citing six people, that Gabbard was completing a plan to move oversight of In-Q-Tel from the CIA to her office. Her spokeswoman said "the entire story is false."¹¹

Publications

On March 17, 2021, the ODNI, the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security jointly released "Domestic Violent Extremism Poses Heightened Threat in 2021," which identified white supremacist extremists as having "the most persistent and concerning transnational connections."¹²

On February 14, 2024, the ODNI published "FISA Section 702 Value Vignettes," which described a 2023 FBI investigation in which a query of Section 702 data showed that "a person located inside the U.S. was in regular contact with an unspecified foreign terrorist group, had acquired the means to conduct an attack and had already identified specific targets in the U.S." On June 10, 2024, lawyers for Brandon Russell, charged in the 2023 Baltimore Power Grid Conspiracy, moved for notice of Section 702 surveillance, arguing that his was the only open case that matched the vignette.¹³

According to Luis Elizondo, a provision drafted by the former intelligence official Christopher Mellon and sponsored by Senator Marco Rubio directed the Director to produce an unclassified report on unidentified aerial phenomena; it was carried in the committee report accompanying the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, and the ODNI issued the "Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" in June 2021.⁷